Travels in the 2nd half

The Elevated Acre As I have written in my last post about the Financial District, there has been a lot of new construction during the past 40 years. One positive aspect of all of these new buildings is that New York City has given developers extra floors in their buildings in return for open space and plazas. Some of these open spaces are old squares and plazas dating back to colonial New York, some of them are just little spaces at the intersections of streets, and some of them are large, new spaces that just could not be there without the new buildings. There is a wonderful little pocket park at the corner of Water Street and Pine Street. The park has benches for hanging out and a lovely sculpture by Taiwanese artist Yuyu Yang , called the East-West Gate. A couple of blocks south from The East-West Gate, Water Street crosses Old Slip. Old Slip gets its name because it used to be a boat dock. Most of the old docks along the East Side of the Financial District were f...